Azja Tuhajbejowicz (died 1672) was a Tatar soldier in the service of Poland-Lithuania. He led the Lipka rebellion of 1672 before being captured and impaled by the Poles.
Biography[]
Azja Tuhajbejowicz was the son of Tugay Bey, a Crimean chieftain who died at the Battle of Berestechko. He was kidnapped by the Poles as a young man and was taken in by the Nowowiejski family, which raised Azja as their own son. However, he was whipped by the father after he confessed his love for Ewa Nowowiejska, and Azja fled and wandered around the world until he entered Hetman Jan Sobieski's service. He fought at the 1671 Battle of Braclaw and the Battle of Kalnik during the Polish-Cossack-Tartar War, after which Sobieski made him standard-bearer of the Lipka Tatars. While serving under Jerzy Wołodyjowski at Chreptiow, he tried to kidnap Wolodyjowski's wife Basia Wołodyjowska, who struck Tuhajbejowicz in the eye with the butt of a pistol before fleeing. The one-eyed Tuhajbejowicz took out his anger by starting the Lipka rebellion, during which he killed the patriarch of the Nowowiejski family and sold Ewa and her would-be sister-in-law Zosia into slavery in Istanbul. He then defected to the Turks and became the mirza of all the Lipkas. Adam Nowowiejski retaliated by raiding into Ottoman territory, capturing Azja, and impaling him on the ruins of Raszkow.
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